SuFin: Breaking the Silence
by 8moonflower8
Summary: Tino is abnormally quiet. Being the considerate man he is, Berwald is concerned. Fluff ensues. Only rated T for the slightly dodgey man-kissing I didn't write very well XD


The only thing he could hear was the muffled crunch of their boots on the snow.

Berwald insisted they go for a walk everyday in winter, if the weather allowed it. Exercise was important. He knew if it was up to Tino, they would spend all day by the fire, wrapped in faux fur or fleece blankets as the wind made the glass jitter in the window frames. He thought Tino at his most beautiful then; warm and content, eyes drowsy and limbs wrapped around the Swede.

The woods were still, the trees tall and silent under their sprinkling of frost and snowflakes. Still all Berwald could hear were their footsteps. Something felt wrong...

" 's cold." He attempted to make conversation, to shift his sense of unease.

Tino only nodded, with a faint flicker of a smile. His cheeks were flushed against the cold. Berwald always said he looked cute that way. Tino always said he felt embarrassed, and that made him flush all the more.

"Snow's startin' 'gain."

His second attempt to break the silence also fell on its face. Tino didn't even acknowledge him this time. Now Berwald was getting concerned. Tino always had a smile ready for him – be it the middle of a hot fuzzy afternoon or the middle of a bleak night in November. He gave up.

"We should head back. 's dark soon."

Tino nodded, and turned slowly, making a messy crush of footprints in the previously unblemished snow.

Berwald was really starting to get really unsettled now. He usually enjoyed quiet. When he was alone, he could spend days at a time in complete silence, listening to the sounds around him: the birds, fire crackling and spitting, his own thoughts. But when Tino was with him, silence became unbearable and cold. He loved to listen to the Finn speak, about anything in the world. He could talk about dinosaurs, butterflies, summer, winter, his past, their future, laughing, crying, whining, whispering – he didn't care. He just liked to listen. Which was why this sudden silence made him uncomfortable. Why on earth was Tino not speaking to him today?

He wanted to put his hand on the other's shoulder, to let him know that whatever was on his mind... well, that it would be OK. But he didn't.

Tino stopped dead; Berwald nearly walked straight into him. He raised an eyebrow as the Finn turned to face him.

"T'no, are you – "

"Shush Berwald."

Berwald's other eyebrow rose to join its partner. Did Tino just 'shush' him?

The latter was now looking Berwald straight in the face, his eyes determined and his jaw set. After eyeing Berwald's bewildered face for a few seconds, his features softened, and his face relaxed into a small smile.

"I love you."

If possible, Berwald's eyebrows rose even higher. His facial muscles had moved more in the last hour than they usually would in a year.

"I love you, Berwald. I didn't know exactly how to tell you, because , I don't know, everything sounded kind of clichéd or mushy in my head, so then I thought maybe I should just kiss you – "

-Berwald choked a little on his own breath –

" – but then I thought that might confuse you because I hadn't told you how I feel, so then I just thought I'd go with something simple, so that's what I did, but I spent so long thinking about it and now it all seems a little anticlimactic, so I'm sorry, but I just had to let you – "

Tino was cut off as Berwald placed a single unsure kiss on his lips.

Tino gaped for a moment, blinked twice, before swinging his arms around the other's neck and pulling him back down for another kiss, a longer one, a wetter one; sliding his tongue over the Swede's lips and into his mouth, feeling the frozen air hit the back of his throat.

It was an intense mix of hot and cold; cold air, cold faces, cold hands, hot breath, warm lips.

Tino eventually released Berwald and they broke apart, Tino still smiling, Berwald still mildly confused.

What Tino had just said finally caught up with him, and he focused once more on the Finn's face. He decided that this was when Tino really looked the most beautiful: smiling, holding his hands, and lips pink from the kiss they had just shared.


End file.
